Saturday night I organized a group outing to go watch the new Lucas film, Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airmen (TA). I jokingly called it a 'hangar movie night' without the hangar. In attendance were Bryan Raley (RV8 empennage) and his son Adam, Gary and Carolyn Zilik (1600 hr flying RV6A), Sean Thomas (RV7 empennage...recently ordered his wings!) and his girlfriend Diana along with prospective RV8 builder Scott Taylor (who contacted me through VAF...nice meeting you Scott!).
All in all, I think everyone in our group enjoyed the movie and the evening...the theatre was packed, which was surprising and cool to see (second grossing movie of the weekend at 19 million). I enjoyed it as well but would only call it good--unfortunately, not great. Let me add, its pretty difficult for a pilot that is passionate about aviation, WWII fighter pilots and the P-51D not to like this movie and see it on the big screen.
****spoiler alert---dont read further if you havent yet seen it and want to be surprised******
My only complaints were the storyline didn't evolve much and was a little shallow and predictable (guess who dies in the end?), the villain was cartoonish and the conflict between the hero was left undeveloped, the love story a little unbelievable (I know, I know...who cares about the love story!!??), a couple of the CGI flying scenes showed an air combat maneuver (Cobra maneuver) that is aerodynamically impossible for these planes...but hey, its Hollywood...and the casual movie-goer wouldn't even be aware of this impossibility so I can let that go. There were some historical inconsistency as well, the TA actually flew the P-51C model, rather than the P-51D model which was shown in the movie. I cant complain though...the 'D' model is much sexier!
On the plus side, at least half the movie was flying scenes...so plenty of flying action, which is never a bad thing for a pilot to consume. Even though a lot of them were CGI, they were very realistic. Cuba Gooding, Jr. is one of my favorite actors and I liked him in this. Even with my minor gripes, I would recommend it. I would just say, sit back and enjoy it and dont overanalyze it like I did! Topping it all off, as usual, the company was great...thanks for coming out guys/gals!
Lastly...I do like the color of choice of the Tuskegee airmen...in case you werent aware, 'Red' is where its at! The color red is associated with lust, passion, love, beauty, and danger.
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